


slowly, and then all at once

by damnspacebois (Race_Jackson23)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Introspection, M/M, Major Character Undeath, POV Shiro (Voltron), Slight Spoilers for s7, coz he comes back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 03:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15452799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Race_Jackson23/pseuds/damnspacebois
Summary: Slowly, and then all at once. Or at least, that’s what Shiro will tell their children when they ask about falling in love and knowing if you’ve found the one and deciding to stay. For him, the paladin, the Champion, theman, it was slowly and then all at once.alternatively: how shiro falls in love with keith





	slowly, and then all at once

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kittymills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittymills/gifts).



> For @flashedarrow, who has already read but I thought it worked as a good gift fic for all the support <3 Posted originally on Tumblr [here](https://damnspacebois.tumblr.com/post/176329498766/prompt-how-does-shiro-fall-in-love-with-keith-in) as a prompt fill.

Slowly, and then all at once. Or at least, that’s what Shiro will tell their children when they ask about falling in love and knowing if you’ve found the one and deciding to stay. For him, the paladin, the Champion, the  _man_ , it was slowly and then all at once.

It starts when Keith finds him at the Garrison after that first escape. When instead of waking up to cold and pain and scientists milling about him as if he’d never left the Galra in the first place, he opens his eyes to warmth, to sunlight. To Keith, watching him with soft eyes and an even softer smile. His heart swells and he has to go outside because he’s  _free_  and he’s  _safe_ and he’s with  _Keith_  but he’s also  _with Keith_  and that’s a whole other overwhelming experience that he needs a breather from. Because he loves him – he has for years – but the feelings rising up in his throat are nothing like what he’s felt before and he just needs a moment to get his head together.

Then they’re setting off into the stars with a ragtag group of teens to fly giant alien robot lions and he sets that overwhelming tightness from his mind because he has to. In the middle of a war for the universe is not a good place or time to think about things like that, no matter how much they consume him.

And they do. It’s in the brush of his hand on Keith’s shoulder, the lingering of gazes. The loss of breath at Keith starring down the practice droid, the sentries, the Galra – anyone who would do Shiro harm. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, so he’s struck silly by that softness more times than he can count and though he tries to brush it off, it is hard.

It is made harder because while they don’t talk about it, there’s an understanding in the relaxed violet of Keith’s eyes. It says, “I know. You don’t need to say it.” For a while there, through his night terrors and the Blade trials and everything else, that’s enough for Shiro. He doesn’t need to go digging into it any more than that, because he knows he loves Keith but he’s not in love with him  ~~yet~~  so there’s not really much to say.

But then he dies.

Being in the astral plane is lonely. Black is there, sometimes, but a lot of the time he’s alone with nothing but his thoughts for company. And so he’s forced, really – forced to think about those things that he shoved away because they were fighting a war and he didn’t have time.

 _All you have is time now_ , says a snide voice in his head,  _not that it matters. You’re dead and he’s not and you’ve realised it too late_.

That’s where the  _all at once_  came into play. He’s blindsided by it: by how much he misses Keith. How much he wants to bury his nose in his hair; hold him close and never let go. See him smile and be the reason for it. He’s without a body in the astral plane and yet, it’s not the lack of blood and bone that makes him feel bereft. It’s the lack of Keith.

Keith has always been there for him. Always, through thick and thin, no matter what. Even as other people he loved found it too hard, too much, to be there and left when he needed them most, Keith stayed. This little scrap of a kid, all fists and scraped knees, turned steady-hearted man, and yet, he stayed through it all.  _Stays_.

And yet, there are moments. Moments when it seems like Keith’s there like he’s reaching out to take the hand Shiro’s offered up, stopping just short of grabbing it. Words in his voice filter down –  _I know you wanted this for me, Shiro. But_ _I’m not_ you _._ – and he aches, because all he wants to do is hug Keith to him and tell him he’s perfect and that he loves him because he is and he does, but Shiro’s dead and gone. He has nothing to offer but love and support filtered through a giant robot lion and it’s not enough.

 _It’s maddening_ , he thinks as he hears Keith’s pleas.  _To be so close, to be so alone as well, and not be able to do anything about it_.

The moments end, though, and he’s completely alone again until he’s not. Until Keith comes tumbling into the astral plane in a whirlwind of undying loyalty and confusion, setting Shiro aflame once more with longing. His love for Keith hasn’t faded exactly, but it’s not until  _he_  is the one fading away that it hits him again like a tidal wave.

And once Keith leaves him, the mourning hits him like a tidal wave as well. He knows his limits; knows that, no matter how much he reaches and Keith stays, it won’t be enough to close that final gap. It won’t be enough to see him again.

In those moments before Allura retrieves him, that’s all he can think of. He doesn’t regret a lot from his life, but what he does regret is Keith. Not finding him or loving him or falling in love with him, no, he could never regret that. But that he didn’t do so sooner. That they didn’t have enough time for him to realise. That he never got to tell him he was in love with him.

That he couldn’t hold him in their last moments together.

As if summoned by that thought, Allura is there, bright as a sun. She takes him into her arms and then everything is dark but then its light once again and he’s shooting upwards with a cough and falling into Keith’s arms.

“You found me,” he says.

That answering smile is all he needs to know that he’s found the only person he’ll ever want to spend his life with.

“Rest,” Keith says, and he does, content in the knowledge that he’s in Keith’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> [come chat to me on tumblr.](https://damnspacebois.tumblr.com)


End file.
